What are Mandalas?

Mandalas are an ancient spiritual art-form that are found around the world in a myriad of cultures and mediums. Mandalas harness the magic of circular geometry. Their creative process enables one or more folks to come together and organically unfold mesmerizingly beautiful co-creations.

Organic mandalas can be found everywhere in Nature– from flowers, to spider webs to the whorl of galaxies. Such organic geometry has inspired humans across time and continents. Well known mandalas include cathedral rose windows like that of Notre Dame, Tibetan sand paintings, indigenous peoples’ dream-catchers, Islamic mosaics and even the carefully calculated arrangement of Stone Henge.

But Mandalas are much more than a beautiful pattern. They are above all a creative process.

In the Tibetan tradition, monks work in silence for weeks, steadily crafting an intricate mandala from coloured grains of sand. Their incredible co-creations were guided by an intention. A mandala for peace, for example, would use the appropriate colours, symbols, and motifs. The monks would work together in sync, each doing their part in a harmonious symphony of organic unfolding. Their final co-creation would take a life of its own and blossom into a mesmerizingly beautiful blessing that would light up its resting place.

The process of creating a mandala can be applied to other endeavours. This is what we are doing on 1Mandala. Here we can unite behind an intention, each do our part, and co-create beautiful things for others that will light places all over the world.

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As a mandala artist, I’ve seen many group mandalas unfold. The process is so simple and organic and yet the co-creations so magnificent! What would happen if we applied this mandalic process to other things? Like collaboratively manifesting beautiful things for others? This is the text that we’ve been crafting for a long time on 1Mandala to best describe not only mandalas, but the process of co-creating mandalically. You can see it here: 1mandala.org/app-mandalas

Photo by Leah Dadas: Tibetan monks co-create the ‘Love and Compassion’ mandala from colored sand. In the same way, we co-create our 1Action blessings on 1Mandala.

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Russs.net

Russell is a regenerative designer and inventor based in Bali, Indonesia. He is one of the leaders of the Ecobrick movement in Indonesia and the world. Inspired by the principles of the mandala and his time amongst the Igorot people he works to implementing deep, trans-formative innovations. You can read more in his Regenerative Design Manifesto or follow him on Facebook and Steemit: